Meat Weak: Export loses US $ 130m in one week

China, Chile and Egypt have returned and will resume buying meat from Brazil, except for the 21 refrigerators investigated

Just a week after the outbreak of Operation Meat weak , the Federal Police , the meat industry accounts for losses of more than $ 130 million. The Brazilian Association of Animal Proteins (ABPA), linked to the poultry and pork sectors, estimates a loss with exports of US $ 40 million by Friday. The beef sector, which is represented by the Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries (ABIEC), although it does not have a closed number, estimates that at least US $ 96 million in ready-to-export products are stopping at the Port of Santos, , Prevented from going abroad.

ABPA Chief Executive Officer Francisco Turra says that the first week of Operation Low Fiber was “very strong” for the industry. “It turned out to be a very dramatic moment, never seen the same, and difficult to reverse,” he says. “The solution will not require a week or a simple official word.

Everything that stops being exported does not have room to be absorbed (internally). So, it has to decrease production and reduce jobs, which already begins to occur, “he says.

Last week, JBS, for example, announced the suspension of beef production in 33 of its 36 units in Brazil, and said that when it resumed activities, starting tomorrow, the factories will operate with a cut of 35 % In production. According to the company, this would be done to adjust production to falling demand.

Absurd

With the blocking of several countries to imports of Brazilian meat, shipments practically became paralyzed. The Ministry of Agriculture itself has estimated that the fall is more than 90%. “It’s an absurd thing,” said Minister Blairo Maggi.

The minister believes that exports can be regularized in a period between a week and 15 days. Still, the injury has already occurred. At the very least, the refrigerators lost from a week to 15 days in the production volumes that they had scheduled for this year.

Maggi estimated during the week that losses on meat exports could reach $ 1.5 billion if the crisis is not resolved quickly.

To try to reverse the situation, the minister himself has been working with Abiec and ABPA in search of strategies. One of them, according to the president of Abiec, Antônio Jorge Camardelli, would be a Brazilian mission to the countries that suspended the purchases of Brazilian meat. “The first visit, possibly with Maggi, would be to China (which yesterday announced that it will resume imports, except for the 21 frigorifices investigated in Carne Locha), and then Hong Kong and Algeria,” an important market for Brazil, Significantly increased purchases since January, “said Camardelli.

Meat sales are important in the Brazilian economy. Last year, they accounted for 7.5% of the country’s total exports, with an approximate impact of 0.8% of GDP. Therefore, there are great concerns that this crisis will last longer.